2010 Winter Olympics

Abstract is: The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXI Olympic Winter Games (French: XXIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and also known as Vancouver 2010 (Lushootseed: K'emk'emeláy̓ 2010), were an international winter multi-sport event held from February 12 to 28, 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the surrounding suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University of British Columbia, and in the nearby resort town of Whistler. It was regarded by the Olympic Committee to be among the most successful Olympic games in history, in both attendance and coverage. Approximately 2,600 athletes from 82 nations participated in 86 events in fifteen disciplines. Both the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games were organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), headed by John Furlong. The 2010 Winter Games were the third Olympics to be hosted by Canada, and the first to be held within the province of British Columbia. Canada had previously hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Following Olympic tradition, incumbent Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan received the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. The flag was raised in a special ceremony on February 28, 2006, and was on display at Vancouver City Hall until the Vancouver opening ceremony. The event was officially opened by Governor General Michaëlle Jean, accompanied by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge. Vancouver 2010 was immensely successful, with the official Olympic Committee press release citing "Full venues, record public attendance: Over 97% of the 1.54 million tickets available were sold, with 71% to the Canadian public at an average price of $139. Adding in international public ticket sales, the percentage of ticket sales to the public exceeds 75% of all available tickets." Vancouver 2010 also achieved record global television coverage as per the Olympic Committee, more than double the viewership of the preceding Turin 2006 games and triple the available coverage of Salt Lake City 2002, and is "recognized in numerous post Games reports as being among the most widely viewed and well received Games in Olympic history, both in Canada and internationally." Vancouver 2010's gold medal final between Canada and USA "was the most watched hockey game ever with viewership of 114 million viewers around the world." For the first time, Canada won gold in an official sport as the host nation of the Olympics, having failed to do so in 1976 and 1988 (although Canada won the 1988 woman's curling event in Calgary when it was still only a demonstration sport). Canada clinched their first gold medal on the second day of the competition, first topping the gold medal tally on the second-to-last day of competition, and went on to become the first host nation since Norway in 1952 to lead the gold medal count. Canada broke the record for the most gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics (14), which was previously set by the Soviet Union in 1976 and Norway in 2002 (13). The United States won the most medals in total, marking their second time doing so at the Winter Olympics, and broke the record for the most medals won during the Winter Games (37), a record held until then by Germany in 2002 (36). Athletes from Slovakia and Belarus won the first Winter Olympic gold medals for their nations.